Date: Mon, 15 Apr 96 11:44:24 GMT
From: Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>
Subject: Re: foraging people



> Adam:
> Firstly, citing the Kalahari is not reasonable,
>

> 
> Lisa:  Let me accept for this argument that if the San people had no
> neighbors they might move out of the desert.  Fine.  Now what is it
> about this situation that makes citing them unreasonable?  
> 

I expressed this rather stroppily. Sorry.

However, in the same paragraph I said 
"of course it doesn't mean we cannot learn anyrhing from them -
we just have to be careful."

and in the next paragraph I assumed your argument was reasonable, 
and sketched an answer.

"Secondly, you are of course right - a large group may become unviable.
It may fragment into smaller groups, most of which I'd guess don't
survive, some of which do.

"I'd guess that crises, for whatever reason, lead to the accelerated
development of new types of groups. But the dynamic is one of groups
ie small societies of humans, affected by and affecting nature, and
so changing themselves."

However, I do think we should be very wary of treating today's foragers 
as equivalent to early foragers. This is basically because class societies
pushed foragers to the margins of ecosystems a long time ago, before the
rise of capitalism. Of course, the rise of capitalism massively magnified
this trend. Our common ancestors, in contrast, were at the top of a very
fertile food chain, with very few competitors ( I believe ). Perhaps
the early capitalist anthropologists were in the best position, having
the means to get around the world, and the possibility of looking at what
they saw scientifically. But, of course, they had Victorian ideology
blinding them.

I'd guess that with brains as big as ours and jaws as small as ours, but
with technology far below ours, there would be considerable "population
pressure" between groups of humans, since a plentiful supply of meat was
neccessary to keep these energy consuming brains going. But I'd also guess
that this tended to result in the expansion of a low density human population,
rather than the "overcrowding" problems you imply, which seem uniquely
determined by surrounding class societies. ( BTW, do we know if the San 
have always lived in the desert ? ).

The San in a way are oddities - they're the ones that didn't give up 
on a basically unequal struggle between a hostile environment and a low
level of technology. But I'm sure ( hope ? ) you'll quote other
foragers at this point.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK

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